Getting started with cracking India’s most challenging exam – UPSC

Completed graduation? The next thing you might be excited to do is perhaps becoming an IAS officer! Don’t get lightening jerks with what people say- decoding the UPSC exam code is worth a big challenge. There will be many hurdles in your path and the first and foremost hurdle will be how to head towards the right track for your target? Many people will say millions ofdifferent things to follow; however, there are few easy techniques that clear off 50% of the hurdles, quite effortlessly. Here are some measured dos and don’ts, from the toppers point of view, for cracking the India’s most challenging exam:

• Regularly follow blogs like insightsonindia.com, mrunal.org or iasbaba.com to stay updated with useful and relevant current affairs and editorial decoding. Though many people will say you that you mustthoroughly follow ‘The Hindu’ and especially their Editorials every day, but reading newspapers isn’t an easy cup of tea, even by toppers like Ira Singhal! Moreover, to stay updated on every field, you must accessorize yourself with the contents of not only The Hindu, but also PIB, Yojana and The Economic Times, to count the least. The aforementioned 3 blogs, clubs everything for you at one run and half of your job is done by regularly following them!
• You need not read hundreds of book, but read one book a hundred times! Laxmikant for Indian Polity, Spectrum for Geography and History and Ramesh Singh for Economy, are the staple books that you should digest word by word. These books are your basics and if you ever need to add on, it should come up through your current affairs notes and not by creating up a library of books and notes at your home that you would eventually never glance back!
• Don’t just save web pages and contents, instead practice on preparing notes. Even if you somehow clear off the Prelims, you would never be able to crack the Mains, if you aren’t aware about the art of responding in UPSC Mains. Taking coaching is definitely not a prerequisite as there are hundreds of examples of toppers who have cracked this exam without taking any coaching- after all, it is self-study which matters at the end. However, these toppers do recommend joining answer writing test series that will help you realize the peculiarities and professionalismof writing answers in UPSC Mains.

It’s only if you are a habitual reading addict and be able to switch yourself to at least a 6 hour ‘quality’ study mode, you can undoubtedly crack this most hyped, but life-rewarding exam!